Aviation
by jibrailis
Summary: Phoenix and Edgeworth meet again after the events of Apollo Justice.


Edgeworth has been clinging to the past his entire life, which is why it comes as something of a surprise when he lets it go.

::

Franziska rockets into his office like a bullet from a .45 calibre pistol. It takes all of Edgeworth's considerable self-control to keep from leaping from his chair.

"What are you doing here?" he asks in German.

She cracks her whip at him. "Fool! Did you check your email this morning?"

"My email?" Edgeworth says. He starts sifting through his piles of paperwork to give his hands something to do. "Of course. I was waiting for an email from Prosecutor Schmidt concerning the-"

"Did you read the email from Gumshoe?" she interrupts.

He stares at her. "What?"

Franziska looks at him for an even longer time. Then she lowers her whip. "You didn't read it, did you," she says and it's not a question. "Miles, do you ever read any of the email from the U.S?"

"I read Stella Johnson's email just last week," he says stiffly.

"I don't mean for work, you fool!" Franziska yells and Miles has to resist plugging his ears with his fingers. Franziska has the kind of yell that can break wineglasses. "I mean from _them_! And don't you dare ask who 'them' is, because you very well know, you fool!"

Edgeworth is silent. He does know who she means by 'them', and the answer is no. His email has a filter that sends all of 'their' emails to a special folder that he rarely looks at. Judging by the furious expression on Franziska's face, she already knows.

"Wright is a lawyer again!" she says, cracking her whip for emphasis. Edgeworth reels out of harm's way and keeps his face as blank as he can, which is pretty damn blank.

"Oh? What happened?"

"Read your email!" Franziska orders and then she walks out of his office and slams the door behind her. Edgeworth winces. His assistants aren't going to be pleased with the noise, but he doesn't pay them to complain. He swivels his chair to his computer and logs in to his work email, the only email address that he has. Some of his coworkers have been trying to get him to create a personal email account but he doesn't see the need. Edgeworth scrolls through his email until he finds the folder titled 'America'. Then he hesitates and looks at the clock. It's ten in the morning. Much too early for drama.

_Don't be such a coward_, he tells himself and clicks the folder's icon. He finds the email from Gumshoe, sent late last night, and opens it.

Sir! And Francesca!

Edgeworth rolls his eyes at Gumshoe's email, written in bright, eager blue. The man can't even spell Franziska's name right. She must have been in a good mood not to mention it.

Guess what! Phoenix is part of the bar again!

Kristoph Glavin confessed to the fake dairy! Phoenix is innocent!

Maggey and I are gonna have a BIG party for him on the 12th! PLEASE PLEASE COME! I know you are in germany but we will be waiting just for you! RSVP!

Edgeworth reads the email ten times before he gets a headache from the bright font. Then he puts his forehead on his palm and tries to think. No doubt Franziska has already told Gumshoe that they'll be there. No doubt she's already packing as they speak.

When she returns to his office he's going over his current case files. "I've got us two plane tickets to Los Angeles on Friday," she tells him. "I've already talked to the chief. He says that once you finish this case you've got, you're free to go. You haven't used up any of your vacation days anyway."

"I don't know if I should go," Edgeworth says.

"What?" Franziska reaches for her whip. "There's no if about it! You're going even if I have to kill you and stuff your body into my carry-on bag."

She would actually do it too, but that's not the point. "Look," he says coolly. "I didn't exactly leave the U.S on the best of terms. I don't know if they'll want to see me again."

"Gumshoe looks like he'll faint from joy if he does," Franziska says cannily. "Of course, we're not talking about him. We're talking about Wright."

Edgeworth's eyebrow twitches. "What led you to that fallacious conclusion?"

Franziska leers at him. "Remember to pack your underwear, Miles. You don't want to meet Wright again after seven years without good underwear."

"Get. Out," he orders.

"Ja, ja," Franziska says but before she closes the door behind her, without slamming this time, she adds, "The red silk pair would be good. Remember I gave them to you for your birthday?"

"Out!"

::

Franziska spends the entire time in the airport on the phone with Adrian Andrews. Edgeworth doesn't know what exactly is the relationship between the two of them because Franziska spends more time on the phone with Adrian than not, but he doesn't pry. The idea of Franziska having any sort of romantic relationship creeps him out, even though she's twenty-seven and he knows for a fact that she goes out dancing some nights with the young lawyers.

She shuts up when they're on the plane and starts flipping through the legal magazines she's brought along. Edgeworth tries to take the time to sleep, but it's hard. He always feels claustrophobic in planes and it's a long flight from Germany to New York where they'll transfer at LaGuardia. He spends most of the time in the bathroom with his head on the plastic sink while little kids needing to pee bang on the door. He wants to tell them to go away, but his throat is dry. He finds it difficult to even speak.

When they touch down in LaGuardia, Edgeworth is ready to kill someone. Preferably his adoptive sister, but Franziska is teetering through the airport on her heels, rolling her luggage behind her. "I need to go the washroom," she announces. "You go on ahead to the gate."

Edgeworth looks at his watch. "We only have fifteen minutes before our next flight. You should have gone on the plane."

"How could I? You were hogging it," Franziska points out. "Go ahead without me. I'll catch up."

"Fine," Edgeworth says. He proceeds to their gate and takes a seat beside a middle-aged woman eating from a bag of cookies. His stomach grumbles and she looks at him curiously, perhaps more so for his magenta suit than for his body's noises, but he fixes his stare somewhere above her head to the window. He can see the planes on the runway loading and unloading. This is only his second time in New York City. The first time he came here, he was with his father, and his father used to pick a seat right near the window so that he could watch. "Always be in awe of flight," his father would say.

_Oh I'm good at flight_, Edgeworth thinks. Just not the kind his father would ever be proud of. Edgeworth is the master of fleeing, and he knows what they'll say to him when he arrives in Los Angeles. _You left when Wright needed you._

_I had a job offer in Germany_, he thinks. _I couldn't refuse it. Besides, Wright told me he would be fine. He had that girl with him. Trucy. And he had everybody else too. He had that stupid smile on his face. He seemed okay._

Right. As if a disbarred lawyer would ever be okay.

"Now starting general boarding," the clerk at the gate announces. Edgeworth realizes with a start that Franziska still hasn't shown up. He calls her on his cell phone.

"Where are you?" he snaps.

"Ugh. Don't feel so well," she says. "You go on the plane. I'll catch a later flight."

"What? Are you crazy?" Edgeworth says. "Just pull up your stomach and get here." He's not about to return to Los Angeles alone.

But Franziska just makes another pitiful moan and says, "Go. Our luggage is going to be on this flight. Can't miss it or we won't be able to find our luggage."

Edgeworth disconnects their call with a scowl. Of all the times for Franziska to get sick. He told her she shouldn't have eaten airplane food. They don't even serve halfway decent tea, for god's sake, and tea is the yardstick of civilization. On the plane to Los Angeles alone he consoles his sorrows with a cup of badly brewed coffee and the in-flight movie, which is about a girl and her dog and their love that dares not speak its name. Or so he thinks. He can't quite tell. Hollywood is irreparably silly.

His stomach lurches when the plane is landing in Los Angeles, though he's not quite sure if it's the bad coffee or his nerves. Must be the coffee. Miles Edgeworth is the Demon of the Court. Miles Edgeworth is never nervous.

::

Gumshoe and Maggey are supposed to pick him up from the airport. Edgeworth considers how to tell them that Franziska will be arriving later, meaning they have to make another trip to the airport. He figures it will be fine. Gumshoe was always ridiculously devoted to him.

He fetches both his and Franziska's bags from the baggage belt. Franziska, as usual, has overpacked, and people around him stare at the man with the frilly cravat trying to carry five bags with his two hands. Edgeworth wants to sue them for their disrespect, but then they're in Los Angeles where Phoenix Wright is a defense attorney again. Who knows what that could lead to?

Beyond the baggage claim he searches the crowd for Gumshoe and Maggey. There's a moment of disorientation when he realizes that he's primarily searching for a raggedy grey coat and that it's been seven years and Gumshoe may no longer wear that coat. Before he can digest what this means he hears someone calling his name. "Edgeworth! Yo!"

He considers fleeing. He's good at it. Miles Edgeworth can run a mile in his Italian loafers without having to stop for breath. But apparently he can't outrun the ridiculous charm of one Phoenix Wright, who stands at the back of the crowds and waves at him. Phoenix is wearing a...good lord, what is that he's wearing? Some sort of hoody and neon blue knit hat. It horrifies Edgeworth's notions of humanity, as well as cruel and unusual punishment.

"Wright," he says coolly as he drags his gallery of bags over. "I was under the impression it would be Detective Gumshoe to escort me from the airport."

"Gumshoe had car troubles," Phoenix says. He sticks his hands in his pockets and gives Edgeworth a once-over. "So you heard the news, huh?"

"Yes. Congratulations."

"Seven years is a long time," Phoenix agrees and there's bitter amusement in his voice, so brittle that it threatens to fall apart. It makes Edgeworth's fists clench on his bags' handles. "Actually, I don't think I knew half the stuff on the bar exam they made me take again," he jokes. "But they felt so guilty they let me pass anyway."

"My faith in the legal system is restored," Edgeworth says dryly.

"Your fashion sense remains the same," Phoenix remarks.

Edgeworth refuses to feel embarrassed about his magenta suit. Just because he's older doesn't mean his sense of style is going to slip, unlike a certain newly re-barred lawyer whose horrifying hat has some sort of smiley face on it. "How old again are you, Wright?" he asks.

"Same age as you," Phoenix rebuts. "Or don't you remember going to school together?"

"I try not to," Edgeworth replies. There is a pause that he refuses to acknowledge as awkward. "So how is everybody else?"

"Good," Phoenix says. "Maya's head of her family and busy with all that medium stuff, so I don't get to see her that often. Pearly's seventeen and almost done high school. She's trying to decide if she wants to go help Maya or if she's going to apply for university. She's at that crossroads in her life, you know?" Edgeworth is about to nod but Phoenix chatters on. "Gumshoe and Maggey are expecting their second kid, but I'm sure you already know that. Gumshoe's been promoted at work. Larry's a..." Phoenix laughs. "He's a children's art teacher. Isn't that perfect?"

"I'm not sure who will teach who," Edgeworth says.

"Exactly. He's just broken up with another model. Don't know how he manages to reel them in to begin with but at least he's not accused of killing any of them. Iris is still at the temple with Sister Bikini. She comes and visits us in the city once in a while but I think she prefers the countryside. Godot and Lana Skye got out on parole. Ema's still stuck in detective work but she's starting to date Klavier, not that she'll admit it." Phoenix continues talking, naming people that Edgeworth used to know. Edgeworth hasn't kept in contact with any of them. But he doesn't need to know their phone numbers and email addresses to know about their lives; he just has to ask Phoenix. Phoenix is the centre of their little world, the gravitational pull that they helplessly follow.

"Where's Franziska?" Phoenix asks suddenly.

Edgeworth tells him about the missed transfer.

"That's too bad. I'll send Apollo along later to pick her up."

"Apollo?" Edgeworth asks.

"Wright and Co's new protégée," Phoenix says. "I'm sure you'll hate him. He's the older brother of my adopted daughter Trucy. Remember Trucy?"

"Gramarye's daughter. Of course." Now Edgeworth feels really uncomfortable. Now they're treading into dangerous territory.

Phoenix seems to know what he's thinking. Phoenix gives him a half-lidded look and Edgeworth has to fix his gaze on a point behind his head to deflect it. Franziska told him that Phoenix worked as a piano player and, more importantly, a poker player during the seven years of his disbarment. It's the poker player who is studying him now, perceiving the cards that Edgeworth holds close to his chest. A strange smirk tugs at his mouth.

"What are you looking at?" Edgeworth finally asks. He likes to think that he's matured over the years, that he's successfully exorcised himself of the angry young man who was called the Demon Prosecutor. But his maturity has got nothing on Phoenix, who seems an entirely different man, confident and cutthroat and capable of getting anything he wants. Edgeworth doesn't know whether to fear him, scorn him, or be a little turned on. Probably a combination of all three.

"You left," Phoenix says, and Edgeworth's skin tightens. The tone of voice Phoenix uses isn't the one he's imagined but the look is; inquisitive, cutting, and slightly disbelieving, as if he can't comprehend the idea that Miles Edgeworth would leave him.

"It was for the best," Edgeworth says flatly. "There wasn't anything I could do for you." He will not ask for Wright's forgiveness. He refuses to. There is nothing that he has done wrong for Wright to forgive.

Phoenix doesn't say anything. He just takes a step closer right into Edgeworth's personal space. Edgeworth would back up if not for the bags behind him and the fact that the entire airport would know that he concedes defeat. Edgeworth remembers much too clearly this same airport when he left the U.S, and how Phoenix had grabbed him by the tie and pressed their mouths together in an awkward, too-quick kiss that had made Edgeworth want to brush his teeth and then drink himself into a stupor to forget it. But the fact that his skin prickles with heat and his palms grow damp is evidence that he can't forget.

"Any girlfriends?" Phoenix says.

"What?" Edgeworth asks sharply.

"Or boyfriends?" Phoenix amends amiably with that hint of a shark's smile. Edgeworth keeps on looking down at where Phoenix is actually fixing Edgeworth's tie. "It's been seven years, after all. Haven't we all moved on?"

"No," Edgeworth says. His answer surprises Phoenix for a second, but then Phoenix looks at him and smiles with genuine pleasure.

"And yes," Edgeworth says. He sucks in a breath when Phoenix' fingers slip into the curve of his tie, making Edgeworth's ears buzz with noise like a faulty radio. Phoenix is touching the skin at his throat now, calloused fingers carefully stroking. It's too much. Phoenix Wright is always too much with his stupid hair and stupid eyebrows and stupid bellowing voice in court yelling 'objection' without the least idea of what he plans to do. He doubts Phoenix thought this through before he came to the airport; thought about raking his nails along Edgeworth's pale skin, pasty from spending most of his life indoors with court files.

"That's where you're wrong," Phoenix says, but Edgeworth raises his eyebrows.

"I'd like to challenge that motion," he says. "Or would you rather just find a bed and have sex first?"

Phoenix pulls his hand away. "Gah. What?"

"Are you blushing?" Edgeworth asks incredulously, though he starts to relax inasmuch as he ever can. There's a deep sense of satisfaction at having unnerved this imperturbable man. A Phoenix who blushes can't be too different from the Phoenix he knew seven years ago.

"No!" Phoenix protests, but his testimony wouldn't hold up in a court.

"Pathetic, Wright," Edgeworth says. "Now where are you parked?"

As they head out of the airport, Phoenix casually says, "We're restructuring our legal system but it's a work in progress. We need brilliant lawyers to do the job. Know any? They'll have to relocate, but if they've lived here before, that's a bonus."

"I can't leave Germany," Edgeworth says stiffly. "I have a job there, a-"

"You have a family here," Phoenix says, and Edgeworth actually has to take a step backwards because it's too much, just like he's always suspected. "Bring Franziska. Adrian misses her."

"We'll see," is all Edgeworth says. He spots Phoenix's car, still the beat-up piece of junk it was when he left. Two figures are leaning against it, a boy and a girl.

"Apollo! Trucy!" Phoenix waves. Trucy comes bounding up to them with Apollo sauntering behind her grinning, and Edgeworth raises his fingers to his neck and loosens his tie, breathing in the cool morning air.

::

When Franziska arrives later that night, Edgeworth narrows his eyes. "You don't look sick," he accuses.

"Are you calling me a liar?" she demands and pulls out her whip. Edgeworth quickly moves away but she looks over his head at Phoenix and winks.

"You owe me one, porcupine-head," she says.


End file.
